Ashley Spiegelberg

Stray was done so well. Beautiful graphics. Lovable characters. Fun gameplay. Mildly challenging but pretty straight forward puzzle/strategy. Quests didn't feel redundant. Only thing I wish was done slightly different was the end. The point of the game is to get outside of the city but you don't see much when you finally do. Still a touching ending, I was just expecting a panoramic view or to run into friends especially after the Lion King trauma they forced me to relive at the beginning. Nonetheless, an unforgettable game. Highly recommend.

Stray

Love everything about this game except online racing is HUGELY flawed which is a huge disappointment since that's a big reason I got the game. You wait in the lobby to connect with 7 other players and the game will repeatedly glitch and disconnect all players. You try waiting in the lobby again.. and again.. and then you finally get through the lobby and make it to the race track after 10 minutes... Just for the game to glitch again and for you to get stuck on the race track and the race to never start. This has been a known issue for years and will never be resolved by the developer, Beenox, because they ended support for the game. I shelved this game after so much frustration. Just tried playing for the first time in a year... Still an issue. Possibly worse. I'd steer clear of Beenox games. I didn't just buy this game for nostalgia and updated graphics. I wanted to race against other people. So if that's something you're looking to do, don't buy this game. You'll be real disappointed.

Crash Team Racing

The Binge

1 like

Not sure what half of these reviewers are smoking but part II was solid. One of the best games I've ever played. The timeline got a little confusing for me but the story was done really well. I played part I, Left Behind, and part II back to back. The story progression made sense to me and gameplay was enjoyable. Humans are complex, emotional creatures. Naughty Dog did an amazing job of portraying just how messy we can get.

The Last of Us Part II

TL;DR - Not a sci-fi movie. Ignore the label and skip the misleading trailer. This movie is about mental health, and you should absolutely watch it. I understand why people are upset this wasn't actually a sci-fi movie, but it's too bad they couldn't cast that disappointment aside and rate this movie based on what it was rather than what it wasn't. I heavily rely on reviews b/c I'm tired of watching disappointing movies but I'm glad that the single review I read was a 5-star telling me to ignore the low ratings. Normally I'm not so trusting but I believed them! "Encounter" is absolutely worthy of 5 stars. I'm a Riz Ahmed fan and his performance did not disappoint. The actors playing his sons also did amazing but it was hard to ignore that the youngest somehow had an accent that neither of his parents had (lol). Forget this movie was labeled as sci-fi and watch it... now! Then go give it a good rating because it currently has 3 stars on Amazon Video and I'm here to tell you that's BS.

Encounter

49 likes

Bo Burnham: Inside

1 like

American Gods

1 like

I skipped past this several times before convincing myself to give it a shot. Clearly a movie whose description starts with "After getting trapped in a vat of pickles for 100 years..." was going to be silly but, with Seth Rogen as the star, I wasn't sure what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at how well they balanced out the overall sillyness of the movie. They didn't overdo it. I was laughing through most of the movie, especially the first half. I'm always happy seeing Rogen being funny. I hope to see more of him soon.

An American Pickle

6 likes